


Traditions

by valda



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Character Study, Childhood Memories, Huxloween, M/M, benarmie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-08 20:51:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12261855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valda/pseuds/valda
Summary: Feeling hopelessly lost for the first time since he was a child, Armitage Hux remembers that day in the labyrinth on Chandrila, and the young boy he'd encountered there.





	Traditions

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Huxloween day 2, corn maze. Also on Tumblr [here](http://cosleia.tumblr.com/post/165992852993/traditions).

General Armitage Hux had always followed his own path.

He held no misconceptions that his path hadn’t been affected by his circumstances, by the end of the Galactic Civil War, by his rescue, by his father’s self-importance and cruelty. But his past did not control him. He made his own choices, good and bad but mostly good, each one taking him ever higher. He was always sure, always confident.

But now he sat with his head in his hands, bleakly contemplating his fate, and he could find no path at all.

_He was running. His lungs burned, and he gasped for breath, and it felt like his legs would give out at any moment, but he had to keep running. He had to get out. He had to get out._

_The strange plants were so tall, towering over him, waving and rustling in the wind. Individually, they were slender, they were nothing, but here they were together, here they were a mass, and they surrounded him, and there seemed to be no end._

_His gasps for breath had turned to sobs, and his cheeks were wet with tears, but he had to keep running. He had to keep going. Even if he didn’t know where to go—_

_He rounded a corner and stumbled to a stop. A child of perhaps three years old was sitting in the middle of the path, playing with a tooka doll.  
_

_“Move,” he choked out, and the little boy looked up at him and cocked his head to the side. He had huge brown eyes.  
_

_“You’re lost,” the boy said, with a certainty and clarity he wouldn’t have expected from someone that young.  
_

_“Shut up.”  
_

_“I’ll help you.” The boy pushed himself to his feet with a small grunt, then reached out to take his hand.  
_

_“I don’t need your help.”  
_

_“Yes you do.”  
_

_He scrubbed his face with his sleeve. “I’ll help you find your way out,” he told the child. “You’re too young to be in here all alone.”_

_“I like it in here,” the little boy said. “It’s quiet. But I’ll get you out.”  
_

_He took the little boy’s hand. He’d let him pretend to know the path._

_“Come on,” the boy said. “This way.”  
_

_They marched forward in silence, the little boy tugging him confidently down turn after turn, until he had no idea how far they’d come. Maybe this had been a mistake. Maybe he shouldn’t have let the child lead—_

_Light winked suddenly through the tall, swaying plants. They rounded a corner, and there was the end of the labyrinth, opening out onto the field where Maratelle stood waiting._

_“You’re all right,” the little boy said, letting go of his hand. “Goodbye.” And with that, he turned and ran back into the maze.  
_

_“Did you have a good time?” Maratelle asked as he returned to her side.  
_

_“Yes, Mother,” he said, because that was the correct answer.  
_

_“Good. Let’s move on. There are several more cultural traditions on our to-do list.”  
_

_“Should we—should we get that kid?” he found himself asking.  
_

_“Who?”  
_

_“The one who was with me when I came out of the maze.”  
_

_“I didn’t see anyone, Armitage. Come along, now.”  
_

He didn’t know why he was remembering the labyrinth on Chandrila. Perhaps because it was the only time in his life when he’d felt as lost as he did now.

Armitage realized he was shaking. He clasped a hand over his mouth and held back a sob.

“You’re lost.”

Armitage’s head whipped around. Kylo Ren stood in the doorway, leaning on the jamb with his arms crossed. Forcing his hand away from his mouth, Armitage glared at him. “Shut up, Ren.”

“I’ll help you.” Ren pushed off the door frame and stepped into the shuttle’s passenger bay.

Armitage stood. “I don’t need your help.”

Ren moved ever closer, until his maskless face was just inches from Armitage’s own. “Yes you do,” he said.

Something felt right, yet wrong, about this whole conversation. Armitage blinked against the burning in his eyes and forced himself to keep scowling. “Don’t worry, Ren,” he said bitterly. “I’ll see to it you make it to Snoke—”

Ren’s hands were suddenly on him, gripping his biceps, and Ren was looming forward, huge brown eyes intent. Armitage had seen Ren’s face many times before, but something about this time was different. Familiar, but in a distant way, like something out of a dream.

And then, suddenly, Ren was kissing him.

Armitage was so shocked that at first he couldn’t move. He made a feeble noise into Ren’s mouth, his eyes slipping closed. Then he fisted his hands in Ren’s robes and kissed back, fierce, demanding, terrified.

When they broke apart he was crying, and Ren pulled him close and wrapped big arms around him and murmured, “You’re all right. You’re all right.” Armitage shook with sobs and buried his face in Ren’s shoulder and felt like he had stumbled out of a labyrinth, away from this slow march to his death and toward something else, something new.

“You’re all right,” Ren said. And somehow, he was.


End file.
